Holly Holm

Bio

Holly "The Preacher's Daughter" Holm is one of the most decorated combat sports athletes of the last twenty years. Before she stopped Ronda Rousey in Melbourne in 2015 to become UFC bantamweight champion, she was already a multi-weight boxing world champion, having held welterweight titles at the WBA, WBF and IBA. She's a southpaw, a long-range boxer, and a disciplined technician. In her boxing prime she was arguably the most complete welterweight in the women's division in the world.

After a long MMA career at the top of the UFC women's 135lb division, Holm returned to boxing in late 2025 with a view to winning a second world title at a new weight. Her first attempt landed in January 2026 against El Paso's Stephanie Han for the WBA lightweight title. Holm was trailing on all three scorecards (69-65, 69-64, 68-65) when the seventh round was cut short by a clash of heads that opened a cut on Han and forced a doctor's stoppage into a technical decision. Holm lost, but not cleanly. The rematch on May 30 in El Paso gives her the chance to resolve that — and to claim her first boxing title in over a decade.

At 43, time is not on her side. But Holm's style is the sort that ages well — footwork, distance, jab, long straight punches from the southpaw stance, minimal damage absorbed. She's still fit, still disciplined, still a problem for any lightweight on the planet. Han is a cleaner boxer at this stage of her career, but Holm brings the one thing Han hasn't yet faced: a pressure opponent with an MMA-built engine who can genuinely fight for twelve rounds at pace. That's a proper test, and it's the sort of rematch women's boxing needs.